Posted on 01/27/2005 5:49:55 PM PST by KwasiOwusu
REDMOND, Wash., Jan. 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Microsoft Corp. today announced record revenue of $10.82 billion for the quarter ended December 31, 2004, a 7% increase over the results in the same period of the prior year. Operating income for the second quarter was $4.75 billion, which was an increase of $3.27 billion over the same period in the prior year......
"Our record revenue came from across-the-board strength in both our business and consumer segments," said John Connors, chief financial officer at Microsoft. "And our long-term approach to growing new businesses is paying off. Home and Entertainment delivered its first profitable quarter and all three of the company's emerging businesses combined generated a nearly $700 million improvement in operating results compared to the second quarter of last fiscal year."
The Server and Tools business grew 18% versus the prior year's comparable quarter. Customer adoption of SQL Server(TM) remains particularly robust with over 25% year over year revenue growth. During the quarter, Exchange 2003 marked its one-year product launch anniversary and has had the fastest adoption of Exchange licenses ever. Customers who acquired Microsoft server products during the quarter included Eastman Chemical Company, Hewlett-Packard Company, Morgan Stanley and Premera Blue Cross.
(Excerpt) Read more at press.arrivenet.com ...
Microshaft corporate motto = "We are Microsoft, resistance is futile. You will be assimilated."
In general, I agree with your point of leveraging current software. OTOH, how much is it going to cost MS to port Windows to an IBM platform?
On your Windows history. First, Cutler didn't start until 1988. Second, a huge reason for the cost and delay is the success of Windows 3 in 1990. Cutler had been designing NT to the OS/2 APIs for a couple of years, but then Gates told them to change everything to be compatible with the Win 16 APIs and DOS. This was a great marketing decision, but it resulted in an inferior OS that was delayed for years. This fundamental design decision haunts Windows to this day.
The best thing Microsoft produces is hardware.
Sony's deepest troubles come from Apple. As the historical leader for personal music players, Sony is now admitting it made a mistake letting Apple claim that title, and it's costing them.
Except Microsoft doesn't make the hardware: it's another company doing the making with the Microsoft brand on it.
In that case, Apple doesn't make hardware and Dell doesn't make monitors. That doesn't matter -- Microsoft hardware designs are good no matter where they're made. They also developed the first ergonomic mouse.
I will go with Dell doesn't make printers, since they are just rebranded Lexmarks.
You left out the part where they design the system first. You could correctly call them a hardware design firm that often contracts out the actual manufacture. I know their notebooks and Mac mini are contracted out, but I think they still make the G5 themselves.
I use an MX1000, and my only problem is that the combo dock/receiver prohibits portability.
I use the wireless keyboard/MX700 mouse combo. Sweet.
Unfortunately, that meant it became a mediocre OS instead of something befitting a marriage of OS/2 and VMS -- more stable, elegantly architected and secure. If you ever wonder why OS X is better than Windows XP, you can trace one reason to this 15-year-old decision.
And the overall point I was making still remains valid. That its sometimes necessary to take loses for some time on a product with a potentially very big market.
Absolutely valid, loss leaders can be a smart business tactic.
Practically everything is based on NT. XP, Win Server 2003, SQL Server and Exchange Server run on NT etc etc.
Sad, but true. Marketing ahead of quality usually wins because people accept low quality if they don't know any better. I would have preferred a harder migration from 3.1/9x to NT than to have NT be so bad. Apple did it the right way with OS X, a whole new OS to throw out the old garbage. There were some growing pains, but the OS is better for it. I belive Microsoft is finally doing this to some extent in Longhorn.
MSFT
26.29
-0.10
AAPL
78.59
+1.06......................:*)
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